Mongrel’s Tooth and Consequences snippet 2

Since we were heading towards the highway, going as a group, I decided to let Fidelma drive. She was still on a learner’s permit, and in this state that meant a ridiculous number of hours under supervision before she could get a full license. She was actually fairly good at driving, and it would give me time to think about why I’d let them convince me to take just one larger tent, rather than the two smaller tents I had originally planned.

It seemed that their affection for me was finally getting to me. I was fairly sure this was a bad idea because grandma had told me she had something important to discuss. If Alecto called something important, it could often be translated as something bloody hinderingly awkward. To give you an idea of what I meant by this, she’d consider cursing one of the richest people on the planet no big deal. She kept quiet about it, but I was sure she’d done that at least twice. And I knew she was planning on cursing Trombone if he won the presidency in the US. Not for funsies, but because she saw him as a risk to the entire supernatural world if he found out about it in depth.

The last thing I needed at this point was more complications in my damned life.

I also hoped I’d been clear enough with Sergeant McGuire that I was not taking any further jobs after this one as I had other issues that needed my attention. Though the odds were, continuing to have them monopolize me was not likely to work in my favor. Bottom line was they’d taken up five months of this year. I didn’t want the SCC to become my sole source of income. So I needed to do independent work for a few months. I would not risk becoming reliant on a government paycheck.

Still, as we traveled down to the south of the state along the highways, I had plenty of time to think. Not that it did me much good. I thought about what grandma could want, or could know that was so important. To be honest, all that led me to was worrying.

I was also somewhat worried that Fidelma was refusing to give me any further information on her remaining curse. I’ll admit it wasn’t a particularly dangerous, nasty, curse. After all, she was only affected by half of it. But they could act as hooks for nasty influences. Devils were particularly adept at using the natural resentment and discomfort of a curse to gain influence over a person.

Still, she kept insisting it was nothing for us to worry about, and we could deal with it in its own good time. I kept insisting she had to get better at controlling her emotions for when we removed it. As a projective empath, whatever she felt emotionally could be felt by those around her. Say she got fighting mad. Suddenly the entire street could be filled with people who, for no apparent reason, were on the verge of throwing punches at each other. This could lead to some sanctions by the SCC against her.

Isolde was a problem for another reason. Although she enjoyed, and fully participated, in any training relating to magical curse breaking, she was slacking off on her training with weapons and fitness. Both Fidelma and I were on her case about it. Sure, she didn’t wanna curse anyone. Being a Fury she needed to be able to physically defend herself to stay alive if she continued to refuse to curse anyone. Otherwise, someone would eventually get past me and kill her, ending up with a death curse being brought down upon themselves. Although to be fair, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that that held for her. After the changes that occurred before my long secondment to the SCC she no longer had the traditional black wings of a Fury. Instead, she had much larger, much better armed golden wings.